Technology | Media | Telecommunications

Saturday, February 21, 2009

Creating a video composition with a music soundtrack has its challenges. Using commercially published music is often the most troublesome approach, due to copyright limitations and licensing requirements.

Besides, there are several alternatives for videographers that produce content -- even those on a small budget.

Some non-linear video editing software packages include a few sample music tracks -- often referred to as license-free or royalty-free music. There are a variety of online sources that sell stock music, which is also royalty-free. And, there are a few sources that offer songs with creative commons music licenses that you can use at no cost, providing you give attribution to the creator.

However, all those options require that the music still must be customized to fit your specific needs, and trimmed to the exact durations of each segment within your video.

Instead, there's fully automated soundtrack creation software that enables customizing the score by actually adjusting the mix and mood of the soundtrack elements. But, when you add-in the total cost of required sound library discs, this solution can get expensive quickly.

Yet another option is affordable semi-automated musical scoring software that can create a consistent thematic audio experience across an entire video project. These flexible tools offer an assortment of music resources that can be customized to suit the demands of any project -- with no experience in music composition or recording studio engineering required.

As an example, MAGIX Music Maker is part of a new generation of multimedia software. Lots of professionally produced sound samples are supplied with the application. In the Arranger, samples can simply be dragged onto the track, looped, and enhanced with digital audio effects.

There are various synthesizer plug-ins for creating your own sounds. Audio CDs and MP3s can be integrated, re-mixed, or used as sample sound material. All multimedia formats can be combined with one another in several variations on a multi-track dashboard interface.

In case your sounds and samples requirements are still not met, you can download additional Soundpools or purchase DVD collections.

I have experimented with this software to create some MP3 Music Samples -- as you'll hear, the video soundtrack application potential is limited only by your own imagination.

Truly, MAGIX Music Maker is equally designed for the novice user -- with features such as the 1-click song maker to quickly and easily create a complete song -- plus a multitude of advanced capabilities to satisfy the creative experimentation needs of more experienced composers.

I particularly recommend this amazing software for budding prosumers, and small business owners who create short videos for digital signage. I encourage you to view their online video demos for more insights on how you can apply this tool in your own multimedia creations.